Sata urges dialogue with secessionists

LUSAKA, Wednesday

Zambia President Michael Sata has called for dialogue with pro-secession groups in Barotseland, the western region of the country.

Some people in Western Province of Zambia have been pushing for the restoration of the Barotseland Agreement of 1964 – which gives the region semi autonomy – that was removed from the Constitution by the Kenneth Kaunda Government in the late 1960s.

In a meeting with leaders of the groups that were previously at the centre of pro-secession fracas in Western Province on Wednesday, President Sata warned them that “if you want confrontation you are in a weaker position than Government is.”

Dialogue will save the country and the people, said President Sata, assuring them that “we will listen to you”.

“We are not going to spill any blood for nothing,” said President Sata, who is about three months old in office, when he met representatives of Linyungandambo, Barotse Freedom Movement (BFM) and the Movement for the Restoration of Barotseland.

However, the head of state said the lack of development in Barotseland was the same in all parts of the country.

“We should soon start (oil) exploration because if there is oil in Angola, I don’t see why we shouldn’t have oil in Barotseland plains,” said President Sata.

President Sata last week publicly rebuked Zambia Police Service newly-appointed inspector general Dr Martin Malama for not quashing the secessionists’ attempts to form “a state within a state”.

“I am a very disappointed Commander-in-Chief. You are fully aware that people in Western Province are inciting to create a state within a state and my Inspector General of Police is smiling. The gun is to protect Zambians but prevention is better than cure. Let’s not wait Mr Inspector General because they (secessionists) are looking for offices in Western Province; they have appointed a prime minister and you are smiling, what type of Inspector General are you? The crime in Western Province is very serious and my Inspector General is smiling,” said President Sata at a military parade.

But several organizations and ordinary Zambians roundly condemned the President for public and humiliatingly castigating the police chief in the presence of his juniors.

Several people were injured and others died while over 100 were arrested in the pro-secession protest in Mongu – the provincial capital – last January during the reign of president Rupiah Banda. The ‘rebellion’ partly contributed to Mr Banda’s loss of votes in Western Province.